A Remarkable Species
by ShootinSta
Summary: A vistor to Earth reflects on mankind's advancements throughout the centuries as the he watches the NX-01 Enterprise leave Earth's orbit. *REVISED*If you noticed a serious problem with the timeline, it should be fixed!


I hope no one's already done something like this. O.o

It's short, yes, yes. But I just had write it...

I realized this morning that I seriously screwed up with the timeline. O.o Yeah, so here it is, revised.

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            His humans were _truly_ going into space. They'd managed to create a warp five vessel with very little outside help at all. These humans may be barbaric, they may be controlled by their emotions, but that's what made them so splendid, so _fascinating. _No typical race could come from the throes of a world war and come out with the ability to travel faster than light, then a century later, travel at warp five. No, humans were not a typical race. 

            He had watched humans go from such fledging stages, to warp ability. He remembered when the Vostok I orbited Earth, giving humanity its first taste of the stars. He had watched as Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. He remembered when humans lived on their first space station, Mir and their permanent settlement of _Alpha. _ Probes and shuttles had been built with the eagerness of a young child over each decade. He'd entered the Millennium Gate and seen the very first step towards colonizing normally uninhabitable planets. He had watched as humans established a foothold to colonize Mars itself.

            Yes, their efforts did become impeded. Wars were always being fought between these humans and diseases and natural disasters reigned. But these humans still came out on top, surging forward with remarkable endurance and those setbacks had become a thing of the distant. Not even the failure of the _Ares IV _stopped their exploration hopes; a world war couldn't cease their need for exploration. After centuries of staring up into space, it must have been impossible for them to stop at such trivial, _human _difficulties such as wars and failures. These humans were remarkable. 

            He knew how his own ancestors felt. He had watched, just as eagerly as everyone around him, as mankind made their first steps into the galaxy. Inwardly, he had rejoiced at their advances, their _leaps _into the universe around them. He had stared into the night skies, wondering what this species would do next, wondering what advance would stretch their reaches further and further into the stars.

Human compassion and enthusiasm forced them to push aside their differences, if only for the briefest moments, and cause them create such miraculous things. It took these humans only one century to go from a simple artificial satellite to faster than light technology. And then, another one hundred years down the line, a warp five ship had arrived. It had taken his ancestors centuries longer to complete what this one amazing species did in two. 

 He had stood in Montana, April 5, 2063, watching the _Phoenix _touch down after its first flight. That Zefram Cochrane, the man behind all of this, didn't seem like a genius, nor did the two men that exited the vessel with him. But that was the beauty of humans. They always could surprise you. If he had learned anything in the more than two centuries he had spent on this planet, it was to respect and admire the surprises that this race had up its sleeve. 

He had stood by, and watched the next advancement humans made. There was the urge brush the shaggy gray hair from his pointed ears as he witnessed Vulcans, his own race that he hadn't seen in two hundred years, made official first contact with the humans. He'd watched over the next hundred years as Vulcans kept back keep them from truly reaching the stars…but still, just enough information to keep humans thinking. Though he respected that action, he could never bring himself to greet them. He had become to radically different. 

You see, he knew that these humans had more surprises and more technological advances to be made. He wouldn't live to see them all -- he doubted he'd live to see the next decade, but he knew that in that decade, in the next _year,_ they'd rush further and further into space, never looking back. They'd create ships to travel to the stars, there would be complexes to further their warp capabilities and they had already brought together the entire planet, eventually, there would be a federation of allied _planets_. Now this ship would make the greatest explorations humankind had ever known. And, he noted, her name was the _Enterprise_. The humans always did have a certain fondness for that name. He knew there would more ships of that name to come, each writing new pages into the history of mankind.

As Mestral stood there, hunched and gray with old age in the year 2151, watching on the screen as the _Enterprise_ left orbit. His race had been almost unwilling to help the wonderful, compassionate and enduring species he had grown to love. He remembered how T'Mir and Stron, his companions so long ago, believed humans would never progress. He had learned that T'Pol, descendant of T'Mir had been placed aboard this warp five vessel. He wondered if she shared T'Mir's beliefs that these humans would cause their own extinction. He knew that later on, she'd come to share his sentiments that they would excel. And would go further than any species had. Yes, they would outclass all others with no help at all from the outside.

Eventually, they would explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations and boldly go where no one -- not even Vulcans -- had gone before. 

((Review this for me? I'd be very pleased to know what you think! I hope no one noticed my larger-than-life screw-up. O.o))__


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